Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
lent Sigatoka control and ''markedly'' increased fruit weights over copper
fungicides.
28
Thatsameyear,companyresearchersdetectedextremelyele-
vated levels of copper in some banana farm soils in Honduras, a finding
that raised additional concerns about continued use of Bordeaux spray.
29
In 1961, aerial Dithane applications achieved ''unquestionable success'' in
controlling Sigatoka on more than 11,000 hectares of bananas in Hon-
duras. The new system led to a sharp decrease in Sigatoka control costs
($67 per acre/year in 1951 to $40 per acre/year in 1966).
30
Standard Fruit
also phased out Bordeaux spraying in the early 1960s in favor of orchard
spray oils applied by workers using knapsack sprayers. In 1968, Standard
began using aerial applications of Dithane.
31
The era of the veneneros was over. Under the new system, the fruit
companies employed a very small numberof men as flaggers (bandoleros)
who helped to guide the pilots (hired by contract) in their runs over the
plantations.Víctor Reyes, whoworked fiveyears as avenenerofor theTela
Railroad Company recalled that ''thousands lost their jobs'' as a result of
the switch to aerial fungicide applications.
32
Between 1957 and 1961, the
Tela Railroad Company cut its labor force from 13,000 to 8,800 employ-
ees.
33
How many of the 4,200 dismissed workers were veneneros is hard
to judge based on available evidence. Equally dicult to pin down is the
number of laid-off employees who were rehired by the company when its
payroll expanded in the early 1960s in conjuncture with the conversion
to Cavendish varieties. A considerable number of people must have been
exposed to Dithane, including the small number of workers who served
as bandoleros, and a much larger number of residents living in company
housing that lay adjacent to the farms. However, Dithane was not acutely
toxic and its potential carcinogenic effects were not common knowledge
in the 1960s. Consequently, SITRATERCO's immediate reaction to the
company's conversion to aerial applications of Dithane was to protest the
loss of jobs, not the creation of new occupational health hazards.
Aerial applications of Dithane-based fungicides proved to be more
effective in helping to eliminate human workers than fungal pathogens.
In 1973, a heavyoutbreak of leaf spotting occurred on some 1,200 hectares
of banana farms in the Sula valley that could not be attributed to ''typi-
cal Sigatoka.''
34
The symptoms possessed characteristics of both Sigatoka
and black leaf streak, a malady first recorded on the island of Fiji in 1963.
Researchers in Honduras dubbed the new disease ''Black Sigatoka'' on ac-
countofthedarkspotsthatappearedoninfectedleaves,anddescribedthe
pathogen as a ''new, undescribed race'' of Mycosphaerellamusicola.
35
Ob-
servers also reported that the new pathogen ''mostly replaced Sigatoka''
